On Friday, December 13, 2013 7:30 PM,
SAD BUT FACT----------
----- Original Message -----
FromCc: Sent: Friday, December 13, 2013 11:31 AM
Subject: Fwd: very sad face--pls read-- A sad place for our country to be and the effe...
This is excellent, but is a sad place to be. Read to the end.
We Are Not Coming Back
Please take a moment to digest this provocative article by a Jewish Rabbi from Teaneck, N.J. It is far and away the most succinct and thoughtful explanation of how our nation is changing. The article appeared in The Israel National News, and is directed to Jewish readership. 70% of American Jews vote as Democrats. The Rabbi has some interesting comments in that regard.
Rabbi Steven Pruzansky is the spiritual leader of Congregation Bnai Yeshurun in Teaneck, New Jersey
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"The most charitable way of explaining the election results of 2012 is that Americans voted for the status quo - for the incumbent President and for a divided Congress. They must enjoy gridlock, partisanship, incompetence, economic stagnation and avoidance of responsibility. And fewer people voted.
But as we awake from the nightmare, it is important to eschew the facile explanations for the Romney defeat that will prevail among the chattering classes. Romney did not lose because of the effects of Hurricane Sandy that devastated this area, nor did he lose because he ran a poor campaign, nor did he lose because the Republicans could have chosen better candidates, nor did he lose because Obama benefited from a slight uptick in the economy due to the business cycle.
Romney lost because he didn't get enough votes to win.
That might seem obvious, but not for the obvious reasons. Romney lost because the conservative virtues - the traditional American virtues - of liberty, hard work, free enterprise, private initiative and aspirations to moral greatness - no longer inspire or animate a majority of the electorate.
The simplest reason why Romney lost was because it is impossible to compete against free stuff.
Every businessman knows this; that is why the "loss leader" or the giveaway is such a powerful marketing tool. Obama's America is one in which free stuff is given away: the adults among the 47,000,000 on food stamps clearly recognized for whom they should vote, and so they did, by the tens of millions; those who - courtesy of Obama - receive two full years of unemployment benefits (which, of course, both disincentivizes looking for work and also motivates people to work off the books while collecting their windfall) surely know for whom to vote. The lure of free stuff is
irresistible.
The defining moment of the whole campaign was the revelation of the secretly-recorded video in which Romney acknowledged the difficulty of winning an election in which "47% of the people" start off against him because they pay no taxes and just receive money - "free stuff" - from the government.
"The most charitable way of explaining the election results of 2012 is that Americans voted for the status quo - for the incumbent President and for a divided Congress. They must enjoy gridlock, partisanship, incompetence, economic stagnation and avoidance of responsibility. And fewer people voted.
But as we awake from the nightmare, it is important to eschew the facile explanations for the Romney defeat that will prevail among the chattering classes. Romney did not lose because of the effects of Hurricane Sandy that devastated this area, nor did he lose because he ran a poor campaign, nor did he lose because the Republicans could have chosen better candidates, nor did he lose because Obama benefited from a slight uptick in the economy due to the business cycle.
Romney lost because he didn't get enough votes to win.
That might seem obvious, but not for the obvious reasons. Romney lost because the conservative virtues - the traditional American virtues - of liberty, hard work, free enterprise, private initiative and aspirations to moral greatness - no longer inspire or animate a majority of the electorate.
The simplest reason why Romney lost was because it is impossible to compete against free stuff.
Every businessman knows this; that is why the "loss leader" or the giveaway is such a powerful marketing tool. Obama's America is one in which free stuff is given away: the adults among the 47,000,000 on food stamps clearly recognized for whom they should vote, and so they did, by the tens of millions; those who - courtesy of Obama - receive two full years of unemployment benefits (which, of course, both disincentivizes looking for work and also motivates people to work off the books while collecting their windfall) surely know for whom to vote. The lure of free stuff is
irresistible.
The defining moment of the whole campaign was the revelation of the secretly-recorded video in which Romney acknowledged the difficulty of winning an election in which "47% of the people" start off against him because they pay no taxes and just receive money - "free stuff" - from the government.
Almost half of the population has no skin in the game - they don't care about high taxes, promoting business, or creating jobs, nor do they care that the money for their free stuff is being borrowed from their children and from the Chinese.
They just want the free stuff that comes their way at someone else's expense. In the end, that 47% leaves very little margin for error for any Republican, and does not bode well for the future.
It is impossible to imagine a conservative candidate winning against such overwhelming odds. People do vote their pocketbooks. In essence, the people vote for a Congress who will not raise their taxes, and for a President who will give them free stuff, never mind who has to pay for it.
That engenders the second reason why Romney lost: the inescapable conclusion that the electorate is ignorant and uninformed. Indeed, it does not pay to be an informed voter, because most other voters - the clear majority - are
unintelligent and easily swayed by emotion and raw populism.
That is the indelicate way of saying that too many people vote with their hearts and not their heads. That is why Obama did not have to produce a second term agenda, or even defend his first-term record. He needed only to portray Mitt Romney as a rapacious capitalist who throws elderly women over a cliff, when he is not just snatching away their cancer medication, while starving the poor and cutting taxes for the rich.
During his 1956 presidential campaign, a woman called out to Adlai Stevenson: "Senator, you have the vote of every thinking person!"
Stevenson called back: "That's not enough, madam, we need a majority!"
Truer words were never spoken.
Obama could get away with saying that "Romney wants the rich to play by a different set of rules" - without ever defining what those different rules were; with saying that the "rich should pay their fair share" - without ever defining what a "fair share" is; with saying that Romney wants the poor, elderly and sick to "fend for themselves" - without even acknowledging that all these government programs are going bankrupt, their current insolvency only papered over by deficit spending.
Similarly, Obama (or his surrogates) could hint to blacks that a Romney victory would lead them back into chains and proclaim to women that their abortions and birth control would be taken away. He could appeal to Hispanics that Romney would have them all arrested and shipped to Mexico and unabashedly state that he will not enforce the current immigration laws. He could espouse the furtherance of the incestuous relationship between governments and unions - in which politicians ply the unions with public money, in exchange for which the unions provide the politicians with votes, in exchange for which the politicians provide more money and the unions provide more votes, etc., even though the money is gone.
Obama also knows that the electorate has changed - that whites will soon be a minority in America (they're already a minority in California) and that the new immigrants to the US are primarily from the Third World and do not share the traditional American values that attracted immigrants in the 19th and 20th centuries. It is a different world, and a different America. Obama is part of that different America, knows it, and knows how to tap into it. That is why he won.
Obama also proved again that negative advertising works, invective sells, and harsh personal attacks succeed. That Romney never engaged in such diatribes points to his essential goodness as a person; his "negative ads" were simple facts, never personal abuse - facts about high unemployment, lower take-home pay, a loss of American power and prestige abroad, a lack of leadership, etc. As a politician, though, Romney failed because he did not embrace the devil's bargain of making unsustainable promises.
It turned out that it was not possible for Romney and Ryan - people of substance, depth and ideas - to compete with the shallow populism and platitudes of their opponents. Obama mastered the politics of envy - of class warfare - never reaching out to Americans as such but to individual groups, and cobbling together a winning majority from these minority groups.
Obama could get away with saying that "Romney wants the rich to play by a different set of rules" - without ever defining what those different rules were; with saying that the "rich should pay their fair share" - without ever defining what a "fair share" is; with saying that Romney wants the poor, elderly and sick to "fend for themselves" - without even acknowledging that all these government programs are going bankrupt, their current insolvency only papered over by deficit spending.
Similarly, Obama (or his surrogates) could hint to blacks that a Romney victory would lead them back into chains and proclaim to women that their abortions and birth control would be taken away. He could appeal to Hispanics that Romney would have them all arrested and shipped to Mexico and unabashedly state that he will not enforce the current immigration laws. He could espouse the furtherance of the incestuous relationship between governments and unions - in which politicians ply the unions with public money, in exchange for which the unions provide the politicians with votes, in exchange for which the politicians provide more money and the unions provide more votes, etc., even though the money is gone.
Obama also knows that the electorate has changed - that whites will soon be a minority in America (they're already a minority in California) and that the new immigrants to the US are primarily from the Third World and do not share the traditional American values that attracted immigrants in the 19th and 20th centuries. It is a different world, and a different America. Obama is part of that different America, knows it, and knows how to tap into it. That is why he won.
Obama also proved again that negative advertising works, invective sells, and harsh personal attacks succeed. That Romney never engaged in such diatribes points to his essential goodness as a person; his "negative ads" were simple facts, never personal abuse - facts about high unemployment, lower take-home pay, a loss of American power and prestige abroad, a lack of leadership, etc. As a politician, though, Romney failed because he did not embrace the devil's bargain of making unsustainable promises.
It turned out that it was not possible for Romney and Ryan - people of substance, depth and ideas - to compete with the shallow populism and platitudes of their opponents. Obama mastered the politics of envy - of class warfare - never reaching out to Americans as such but to individual groups, and cobbling together a winning majority from these minority groups.
If an Obama could not be defeated - with his record and his vision of America, in which free stuff seduces voters - it is hard to envision any change in the future.
The road to Hillary Clinton in 2016 and to a European-socialist economy - those very economies that are collapsing today in Europe - is paved.
For Jews, mostly assimilated anyway and staunch Democrats, the results demonstrate again that liberalism is their Torah. Almost 70% voted for a president widely perceived by Israelis and most committed Jews as hostile to Israel. They voted to secure Obama's future at America's expense and at Israel's expense - in effect, preferring Obama to Netanyahu by a wide
margin.
A dangerous time is ahead. Under present circumstances, it is inconceivable that the US will take any aggressive action against Iran and will more likely thwart any Israeli initiative. The US will preach the importance of negotiations up until the production of the first Iranian nuclear weapon - and then state that the world must learn to live with this new reality.
But this election should be a wake-up call to Jews. There is no permanent empire, nor is there an enduring haven for Jews anywhere in the exile. The American empire began to decline in 2007, and the deterioration has been exacerbated in the last five years. This election only hastens that decline. Society is permeated with sloth, greed, envy and materialistic excess. It has lost its moorings and its moral foundations. The takers outnumber the givers, and that will only increase in years to come.
The "Occupy" riots across this country in the last two years were mere dress rehearsals for what lies ahead - years of unrest sparked by the increasing discontent of the unsuccessful who want to seize the fruits and the bounty of the successful, and do not appreciate the slow pace of redistribution.
If this election proves one thing, it is that the Old America is gone. And, sad for the world, it is not coming back."
The problems we face today are there because the people who work for a living are outnumbered by those who vote for a living.
Posts
11 comments:
No, it is most decidedly not excellent. How could one think that such bigoted, condescending demagoguery is excellent, unless one were also a bigot?
Which may explain why people are leaving his congregation in droves.
From Voz Iz Neias:
In response to Rabbi Pruzansky’s post, the synagogue’s executive board has circulated a petition among its membership to call the “rabbi to order.” Bnai Yeshurun members said that while they appreciate that the rabbi is entitled to free speech, they feel strongly that his blog “insults and denigrates” community members. In fact, they say, the rabbi’s fanaticism has “driven away many members of his congregation over the years” and has led to the establishment of at least seven other synagogues in Teaneck – many of which are filled with the rabbi’s critics, including ADL National Director Abraham Foxman.
I'm sure Pruzansky played the martyr card when he was called on his bullshit, a la Sarah Palin.
Between this guy and Christie, what the heck is in the water in New Jersey?
Did all the reason leave that state with Bruce?
You lost me here:
The simplest reason why Romney lost was because it is impossible to compete against free stuff.
Democrats do not believe in "free stuff" from the government; they believe in supporting government services via appropriate taxation.
It's the Republicans who believe that taxes should be zero and that all government services should be free.
So if 70% of Jews are Democrats, there's a pretty good chance that Jesus would be a Democrat if he were alive today. Just sayin.
Republican Jesus (who is white, blonde, rides dinosaurs, loves assault guns and is best friends with Santa Claus) would disagree.
Ordinary Republicans really don't know why they keep losing. Like generations of out-of-touch and elderly before them, they have decided the problem is other people, specifically other people's morals and values. That way they need do nothing more than complain ad nauseum. It simply doesn't occur to them to look in the mirror or examine the disastrous effect of their own policies.
"Romney lost because the conservative virtues - the traditional American virtues - of liberty, hard work, free enterprise, private initiative and aspirations to moral greatness - no longer inspire or animate a majority of the electorate."
1. Why does Pruzansky label these as "conservative virtues"? There's your first tell that this guy is a rightwing, disingenous asshole. I'm mighty sick & tired of being adjured that only "conservatives" aspire to such "virtues."
2. RMoney embodied absolutely NOT ONE of Pruzanksy's highly touted "conservative virtues." Not ONE. That's why that overbred, arrogant, entitled, b.s. SOB LOST. RMoney was born into a wealthy, very well-connected Mormon family. Everything that RMoney "got" was either provided to him as the son of a wealthy and well-connected politician & Mormon, or he RIPPED off the 47% through his schemes at Bain Capital. Try as Pruzansky might, he simply cannot find enough lipstick to put on the PIG that was Bain Capital. RMoney got mega-wealthy via impoverishing the very Americans that sociopaths like Pruzansky wish to demonize in their ersatz "moralizing" lectures from on high.
3. Neither RMoney, nor Pruzansky, exhibit the slightest trace of "aspirations to moral greatness." Please pull the other one.
And then: horrid takers in the 47% just want "free stuff"? Gimme a break. In the ONE and only tax return that RMoney would permit to be revealed, he paid less than 17% in fed taxes. I have paid more than twice that much for decades, and undoubtedly, in the years that RMoney wouldn't reveal his taxes, he probably paid much less than that or Zero in Fed Taxes. Talk about a TAKER. RMoney uses Bain to shut down businesses, off-shore US jobs & then pays little to no Fed Taxes, while amassing a gargantuan suckingly humongous fortune, and we're supposed to *admire* a Crook like him??? I don't think so.
What a load of crap, but unsurprising. I duly note that Pruzansky - most likely a big old Zionist - says nothing about the huge amount of Fed tax dollars that go to support Israel every year. Israeli citizens enjoy a ton of benefits that we here in the USA don't - thanks to you & me, but certainly not to RMoney who has never paid anything close to his fair share in taxes.
Pruzansky is entitled to his nasty, racist, bigoted, classist, arrogant, diatribing opinions, but they're just that: nasty opinions and not based in any factual.
ptoui!
The "Occupy" riots across this country in the last two years ...
Riots?
Yeah, ever so much worse than the Tea Partiers - who are the intended audience - most definitely "rioted" at Town Halls across the country, openly carried guns to events where the President spoke, spit on legislators, etc.
Pretty inflamed rhetoric for a man of the so-called "cloth." But then again, not much different from his "Christiany" counterparts in judgemental, bigoted Mega Churches. Just another version of: I got MINE, Eff YOU!
Way to go, Rabbi. Maybe you oughta read the Torah or the Beatitudes once in a while. Might learn something that you clearly don't know.
The theory that everyone votes Democratic because of "free stuff" was what led to the Two Santa Claus strategy of the Reagan era and all the disastrously dumb supply-side economics and never-raise-taxes rhetoric of the modern Republican party.
But it's funny that he only rails on "that 47%" and not the Wall Street profiteers who pay a lower tax rate than the average American AND got bailed out to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars after they kicked the working class out of their jobs and homes. Pastor Rick Warren caused quite a stir when he made the same kind of accusations, so I hope this guy's congregation can remind him of Proverbs 19:17: "He who has compassion on the poor lends to the Lord, and for his benefits He will repay him."
" because they pay no taxes and just receive money"
I'm sorry...did you just say that 47% of the U.S. population doesn't pay sales tax? Did I just get that right?
Hang on...I've got to go sharpen my knives.
It's beyond annoying how suck up shills like this Rabbi & Mitt Romney make it sound like 47% of the population doesn't pay ANY taxes, rather than no FEDERAL taxes.
Everyone pays loads of other taxes, most of which are more regressive, such as sales taxes, state and local taxes, etc.
Agree with others, it's the 1% who pay much less, proportionately, in federal taxes than most other citizens.
Reliable obfuscation distorting the truth, as usual.
Post a Comment